


Through The Good Times and Especially The Bad.

by robron_til_the_end



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Hospitals, M/M, One Shot, october week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8209711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robron_til_the_end/pseuds/robron_til_the_end
Summary: Well, the first of what I imagine would be a few October week fics from me. I can't seem to help myself!! Robert and Aaron goodness, as per usual!





	

**Author's Note:**

> How I’d write it if it were up to me, and who I’d kill off… I’ve left Liv out of this, because I mostly wanted it to be about Robert and Aaron only.

Robert sat in the hospital waiting room, bent over so much his forehead very nearly touched his knees. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind, Aaron slipping off the edge of the quarry. One moment he was there, the next, he’d simply… gone. Dropped off the very edge of the cliff. Robert hadn’t had the time to do anything except let his jaw drop open. By the time he’d screamed Aaron’s name, his lover had already hit the water. His body had dropped like a stone, and Robert had never felt such pure fear as he had in those moments. Not even when his mother was burned alive. The kind of fear he could taste in the bile filling his mouth.

He’d asked Aaron to marry him. Actually, it had just came out, not in anything near the way Robert had planned either. It wasn’t romantic or special, or anything at all. Just a simple sentence, the way he’d normally say “call me when you get there, okay?” Aaron had been shocked, so had Robert. He’d been thinking about it for a while, but he could have kicked himself for letting it slip like that.

“How about we talk about that when I don’t have a teenager tied up in the boot of my car?” Aaron had said, instead of a proper answer. But he’d had a vague smile around his mouth, completely at odds with the situation he found himself currently in. So Robert had kept that bubble of happiness alive, if not yet completely fulfilled. Then all too soon, he was falling off the edge of a cliff.

“Robert?” He heard the voice, but he couldn’t look up. The doctors were going to let him know when Aaron was out of surgery. Nothing else mattered. They suspected broken ribs, and definitely a broken left leg. “Robert, come on, look at me.” It took some effort, but he looked up into Chas’s worried face, no make up, clearly having been crying. “I need you to talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

“He…” Robert struggled for breath, the image of Aaron falling on a loop in his mind. “I can’t, Chas. I… he…”

“Come on, take deep breaths,” Chas said, sitting next to him. “Is Aaron dead?” she asked bluntly, much more bluntly than Robert would have expected.

“Surgery,” Robert breathed. “They… don’t think it’s looking good.”

“Aaron’s tough,” Chas said.

“I… can’t c…” Robert was struggling to talk, to even speak. The possibility that he could lose Aaron was too horrific to even put into words. As if by saying it, it might make it true. Aaron was the only person he had ever known who accepted him. All the bad parts of him as well as the few good ones. “Chas, I know you don’t like me, but I can’t lose him. I just… I’d never cope.” Much to both of their surprise, Chas pulled Robert into a hug.

“You won’t lose him,” Chas said to him, rubbing a hand down his back. “Aaron’s always been a fighter. You know that.” Robert backed away from her, feeling embarrassed. He didn’t do emotional, and he certainly didn’t do emotional in front of his (hopefully) future mother in law.

“How are you taking this so calmly?” Robert asked. “He could…”

“Because I’ve just seen Paddy,” Chas said calmly. “And the longer Aaron’s in surgery, the longer I can put off telling him.”

“Oh, I’m going to regret this next sentence, but…” Robert said. “Telling Aaron what?”

Chas took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Paddy. He’s… oh God. He… died. And the only thing worse than that, is imagining the look on Aaron’s face when I tell him.”

“How?” Robert asked.

“Pierce has been arrested for it,” Chas said. “I don’t really know the details, but… Aaron will hate me for telling him. He’ll hate that he wasn’t there to say goodbye. Oh, God. I don’t know if I can do it. Tell him that his dad is… he worships Paddy, you know that.”

“I’ll tell him,” Robert said quietly. “I want to.”

“Why?” Chas asked, frowning. “Why would you want to break his heart like that?”

Robert debated with himself, but thought he had little to lose. He didn’t have the energy or the brain power to work out a lie that would hold up. So he spoke honestly, looking at his clasped hands instead of at her. “I asked him to marry me.”

“You did what?” Chas’s voice had been soft and almost broken until this point. Now it had turned to her usual harsh pub landlady tone. “W… what did he say?”

Robert smiled without any real amusement. “He was… shocked. But then he told me we had to focus on the teenager tied up in his car, and we’d talk about it later. But he was smiling.”

“Do I want to know?”

“No.”

“Okay then,” Chas said easily. “You really want to marry him?”

“Yeah, I know I probably should have asked you first, but… we never did things the right way around, did we?”

“Oh God,” Chas said forcefully, closing her eyes.

“What?”

“I’ve just thought, you’re going to be my son in law.”

“Careful,” Robert said. “He hasn’t said yes yet.”

“He will,” Chas said. “I don’t get why, but he trusts you and Aaron… doesn’t trust easily.”

“I know.” Robert said. “He has to be okay. He has to be.” Chas said nothing. “How did… Paddy…?”

“Stabbed,” Chas said. “They thought he might make it but… no.”

“I will tell him,” Robert said, finding it easier to focus on that, than the fact Aaron could be dying on the operating table right now.

“Why would you volunteer for that? He‘ll hate hearing it.”

“I won’t be able to lie to him anyway. And I didn’t want…” Robert sighed heavily. “I don’t want to marry him just for when life’s going well. I want him for the rest of my life Chas. And I mean it.” She forced a smile.

* * *

 

It was sometime later that a doctor approached them. “Aaron Dingle?”

“Yes, how is he?” Chas said, Robert unable to find the words as quickly.

“Right, he is going to be in a lot of pain for a while,” she said. “He’s got three broken ribs on his left side, which resulted in a collapsed lung. We’ve repaired that, but it will take a long time for his ribs to heal. And a broken leg, which we told you about earlier."

“But he’s going to be okay?” Robert asked desperately. “He’ll make it?”

“Early signs are good. He’ll probably be confused when he wakes up, but he should wake up in the next couple of hours.”

“Can we see him?”

“Of course,” the doctor said, turning and they followed her to Aaron’s bedside. Robert instantly took his hand tightly in his own, leaning over him and kissing his cheek lightly. He completely ignored Chas, she wasn’t important right now. Right now all he wanted to do was hold Aaron, to see his beautiful blue eyes sparkling at him. Sod marriage right now, at this moment he’d take Aaron kicking him out of his life, telling him he never wanted to see Robert again. At least he’d be alive and safe.

* * *

 

It was two hours later that Aaron began to stir, just a slight twitch. “I’m here,” Robert said, his hands on his face lightly, reassuring him. “You’re safe. And you’re going to be okay.”

“It hurts,” Aaron whimpered.

“I know,” Robert said, swallowing around the lump in his throat, letting go of his face, settling for his hand instead. Both men were completely ignoring Chas. “You’ve got three cracked ribs.”

“Yeah, feels like it,” Aaron said, eyes flickering open. Robert smiled at him tiredly. “Oh,” Aaron said.

“What?”

“You’ve got bad news,” Aaron said simply, just from looking at him. “Hit me with it.”

“I need you to stay calm,” Robert said surely. “Do not panic, because I cannot have you struggling to breathe with your rib and lung problems and…”

“Who?” Aaron asked quietly. “Just… quickly.”

“Paddy,” Robert said simply.

“What?” Aaron asked.

“I’m so sorry,” Robert said, making Aaron close his eyes in unexpected grief. He knew from Robert’s face it was fatal. Chas silently marvelled at the fact that Robert and Aaron were having a deep in depth conversation in so brief language. They didn’t need their words, their gazes, their eyes locked on each other with such understanding was enough.

“I should leave you alone,” Chas said, feeling like she was intruding on their privacy, in spite of the fact Aaron was her only child. She had no doubt how much Robert loved her son, and in the end, that was what mattered. Once the door closed behind her, Aaron continued.

“How… I mean… did he suffer?”

“Stabbed,” Robert said. “By Pierce. I’m so sorry,” he repeated. They lapsed into silence, Aaron only letting go of Robert’s hand to wipe the tears from his eyes.

“Did you mean it?” Aaron asked eventually, when the silence dragged on for too long.

“Mean what?” Aaron looked at him. “Oh. We don’t have to talk about that now, I mean… so much has happened.”

“Because my answer would have been yes.”

“Seriously?” Robert asked, almost unable to believe it. Aaron’s eyes were shadowed with grief, but his lips were smiling very slightly. “You mean that?”

“This isn’t how I thought it would go,” Aaron said. “But yes.”

“No, we’re going to do this properly.”

“Robert…”

“Indulge me,” he said slowly. “Will you marry me?”

“You’re a sentimental idiot,” Aaron said. “But yeah. I will. Life’s too short, you know?”

“Yeah, I do,” Robert said. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” Robert kissed him very softly. “Now I need to sleep. I’m…”

“I know,” Robert said. “Rest. I’m sorry about Paddy.”

“I can’t even think about that,” Aaron said. “I feel knocked out.”

“It’s the medication,” Robert said. “Sleep.” It didn’t take long before Aaron did, and Robert knew under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be able to consider it, sleeping knowing Paddy had died, but the amount of drugs he was on, it was hardly surprising. Robert kissed his lips very gently before straightening up. He stroked Aaron’s hair lightly, before leaving the room. He couldn’t be so selfish. He’d give Chas time with her son.

**Author's Note:**

> I am convinced Paddy will be dying in the October week. I don't know why, I can just see it so clearly in my head.


End file.
